"Next check" time - too long; can i increase test concurrency?

Fri, 2011-01-21 05:50 — dmc129

I have approx 150 tests running.
I have interval checks set to 0 seconds.
I need to test some alerts every 5 minutes and some every 15 minutes.
But once a check has been performed the time to next check comes back at approx 20 minutes.
Is there a way i can increase the concurrency of tests so i can reduce the "next check" frequency?

The minimum frequency is 5 seconds, if I recall correctly, though might be longer. I recommend setting the interval at 30 seconds or so. But for that number of tests, it'd probably be better to check less frequently, to avoid overloading Simon.

when i say i have interval checks set to 0 seconds - i mean "interval checks" in the preferences which has a max value of 10 seconds

I'm more confused now. so to come back to my original question...
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I have approx 150 tests running.
I have interval checks set to 0 seconds <---- in the preferences pain.
I need to test some alerts every 5 minutes and some every 15 minutes.
But once a check has been performed the time to next check comes back at approx 20 minutes.
Is there a way i can increase the concurrency of tests so i can reduce the "next check" frequency?
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Ah, I see. The "Interval between checks" preference is how long to wait between starting each check when checking multiple tests manually. A value of 1 or higher is recommended to avoid overloading things.

Look at the check frequency in the Edit Test window for ones that come back as 20 minutes; maybe the success/failure frequency is actually set at 20 minutes.

Also the application becomes progressively more sluggish the longer i go between restarting Simon.
i.e. i can move the monitor window immediately, but to minimise or perform an edit has a delay of more than 30 seconds
The server it is on is running normally and other processes are responsive e.g. launching terminal to perform the "top" command

Simon uses a queue when starting checking, to avoid starting everything at once. That queue message means the test has been added to the queue, though I agree 43 minutes is way too long. Are there lots of other tests with queued messages, or just a few that are queued and never starting?

I do plan on making some changes in upcoming releases that should help reduce the load. In version 3.1, which I hope to have out in a couple of weeks, the data storage will be more flexible and efficient, which will help, and in version 3.2, in a couple of months, I plan to split the app into more processes: it currently uses some helpers for certainly operations, but in 3.2 it will launch each test in a separate process, which will greatly spread the load, and avoid impacting the UI (and in fact you won't need to keep the main UI app running at all).

That's certainly keeping Simon very busy. It should be able to cope with it, but restarting Simon occasionally would definitely help. As I said, version 3.2 should help it cope better with heavy loads.

In the meantime, another solution could be to split the load up — run multiple copies of Simon, with subsets of the tests (could just duplicate the data and pause some in each). Either on the same machine (by duplicating the app and data folder, and pointing each app at different data), or on different machines.